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From Order To Delivery: The Journey of Your Book

Whilst you are waiting for your book to arrive, if you’re anything like me, your mind starts to wander.

If your wandering gets you wondering what the meaning of life is, it’s still 42. If you’re wondering what the secret to a perfect soufflé is, I’m afraid I can’t help you.

But if you’re wondering what happens after you click to confirm your order, wonder no more!

The simplicity of digital books

If you order a digital copy of the book, it will simply arrive to you within two hours, ready to go straight to the lucky recipient. Then it can be shared far and wide to family and friends.

So far, so simple. But what if you’ve stayed old school and ordered an actual factual physical book? Well, then the process has a few more steps.

Reviewing books with ninja speed and accuracy

I sat down with our very own Customer Happiness Team to map out the journey your book takes from being created on your computer to arriving in the post.

JP leads our small but mighty team, which consists of Joe, Francesc, Maria, and Quique. They are all super friendly and endlessly helpful. And that’s pretty much the motto of the team.

After you complete your purchase, your order joins a polite and orderly queue (we are, after all, a British company), ready to be reviewed by the team.

The team is as fast and precise as ninjas. They are able to review thousands of books a day and can spot an error from a thousand paces.

When reviewing a book, the member of the team will go through the whole thing, page by page. They are looking out for anything that doesn’t look right. Sometimes they find font size problems, artwork that doesn’t load right, or typos in the text.

We love technology, but we haven’t given up the fight to our robot overlords yet. So – very occasionally – something slips through the net. Which is when we get a chance to make things right, and play Human After All on the office speakers.

Only when they are completely happy that your book is A-OK do they approve it for the next stage of its journey.

Get ready for the printing process

Once approved, your book joins another orderly queue in the system used by our printers. At this point, you’ll receive an email containing a digital preview version of your approved book.

Your book waits patiently in the printer’s queue for an hour. This gives you a chance to have one final check through. If you do spot any errors at the last minute, you can let us know and we’ll get things straightened out.

Then your book enters the printing process. Depending on which finish you selected (softback, hardback, or deluxe), books take between 2-3 working days to print.

Our printer’s machines print 25 books at a time. Seeing it in action is quite the sight to behold.

And so, a book is born. Hurrah! Your book is ready for its life as a fully printed, beautifully personalised keepsake.

From the printer to the postman to you

Your freshly printed book is carefully hand packed and then readied for collection by the Royal Mail (or, for upgraded shipping, the courier service).

Once it’s been collected, your book wings its way to you, fresh and ready for the lucky duck you’ve created it for. Books being delivered to a mainland UK or US address tend to arrive within a week of being picked up by the post service.

All that’s left for you to do is put on your homemade cape* and prepare to be a gift hero.

*You do that too, right? It’s not just me who insists on giving gifts in a full Marvel style costume complete with cape, mask and self drawn logo… is it?